The Kundalini room was circular and silent, its walls carved with ancient symbols that seemed to shift subtly in the low amber light.

  The air carried a faint warmth, not oppressive but alive, as though the chamber itself breathed in rhythm with whoever entered it.

  Tymir stood at the center of the room, trying not to let his curiosity show.

  Across from him stood Chancellor Sterling's Reiki Master, an older man with silver threaded through his locs and eyes that had watched generations rise and fall within the Academy walls.

  His presence was steady, grounded, with an alertness that never dimmed.

  "Lie down," the Master said gently, gesturing toward the circular mat embedded with etched geometric patterns. "Close your eyes. Breathe naturally."

  Tymir did as instructed.

  The mat beneath him was warm against his back. He closed his eyes and inhaled slowly, allowing his shoulders to relax.

  The Reiki Master stepped closer.

  He didn't touch him immediately.

  Instead, he hovered his hands inches above Tymir's body, beginning at the crown of his head.

  The Master's brows tightened almost imperceptibly. A faint vibration radiated upward beneath his palms.

  Tymir's crown center pulsed with unusual clarity, bright and unobstructed.

  The energy did not flicker. It moved with disciplined steadiness.

  He moved lower.

  Third eye.

  The pressure intensified.

  The Master inhaled slowly through his nose.

  Tymir's intuition center was not merely active. It was expansive, layered with depth that suggested both conduit sensitivity and something older.

  Something anchored.

  His hands traveled to the throat.

  A sharp current met him there. Clean. Resonant. Balanced between restraint and force.

  The Master's jaw set.

  When he reached Tymir's heart center, the warmth increased dramatically.

  It spread outward in controlled waves, not chaotic, not volatile, but powerful in a way that demanded respect.

  He paused there longer than he intended.

  Tymir's breathing remained even, unaware of the scrutiny unfolding above him.

  The Master continued downward, scanning the solar plexus, sacral, and root chakras.

  Each center responded with strength and cohesion. There were no fractures. No suppression. No signs of forced conditioning.

  Everything aligned.

  The Master slowly extended both hands above Tymir's chest and closed his eyes.

  He shifted from reading to channeling.

  The temperature in the room rose several degrees.

  The symbols along the circular walls shimmered faintly as the Master drew on his own cultivated energy and pressed gently against Tymir's field to reveal its outermost layer.

  Most conduits responded the same way.

  A red aura, Controlled. Harnessed. Predictable.

  At first it appeared faint, like light beneath water.

  Then it surged outward.

  A brilliant, molten gold radiated with authority and depth, threaded with streaks of white at its core, promising greatness and peril in equal measure.

  The Master's hands trembled.

  He opened his eyes abruptly, breath catching in his chest as the light flared brighter before settling back into Tymir's body as though nothing had happened.

  He had not seen that source of energy in sixty years, and he remembered what had followed it.

  Silence filled the chamber.

  "Tymir," the Master said carefully.

  Tymir opened his eyes, blinking at the ceiling. "Yeah?"

  "You may go."

  There was something different in the Master's tone now. Not alarm. Not accusation.

  Concern.

  Tymir pushed himself upright, studying the older man's expression, but the Master had already composed it.

  "Is everything okay?" Tymir asked.

  "Yes," the Master replied smoothly. "You are dismissed."

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  Tymir nodded and left the chamber, unaware that the room still felt charged in his absence.

  The moment the door sealed shut, the Master exhaled sharply and moved.

  Chancellor Sterling's private office was dimmer than the commons hall, lined with archived volumes and glowing data tablets suspended midair.

  Sterling didn't look up immediately when the Master entered.

  "You requested to see me," Sterling said evenly.

  "I have news," the Master replied.

  Sterling glanced up then, reading the tension in the older man's posture. "Go on."

  The Master stepped forward, lowering his voice.

  "Tymir's aura did not manifest as it should have."

  Sterling's expression did not change. "Clarify."

  "It was not red like normal Conduits."

  Silence stretched between them.

  "What was it?" Sterling asked.

  "Gold."

  Sterling froze.

  The word did not echo, yet it seemed to expand within the office walls.

  "Are you certain?" he asked quietly.

  "Yes."

  The Master's gaze darkened. "The last time I encountered energy of that caliber was..."

  He hesitated, as if speaking the name would summon something unwelcome. "When Riven was here."

  Sterling stood slowly.

  "We cannot have another situation like that," he said, the control in his voice tightening. "That type of energy nearly destroyed the order of this Academy. It invites instability."

  "But he's a Level Seven REM agent," the Master said carefully. "He is of great value."

  "Value does not outweigh risk. Not for him. Not for what it might awaken."

  "With that frequency," the Master continued, holding Sterling's gaze, "we cannot force him to suppress his anchor energy to maintain conduit alignment for the sake of the academy's order. If both sides of his nature are not exercised equally, the imbalance will fracture him."

  Sterling's jaw tightened.

  The memory, decades buried, tugged at him with a weight he had long denied.

  The room fell quiet again, but this time the silence felt heavier.

  Sterling turned away, staring out the tall glass panel that overlooked the training courtyards.

  "I need time to decide how to approach this," he said at last. "This remains between us. Dorinda is not to know. Not yet."

  "That will raise questions," the Master warned.

  "It will raise panic," Sterling corrected. "And panic spreads faster than truth."

  The Master inclined his head.

  "As you wish."

  He turned and exited, leaving Sterling alone in the quiet of his office.

  The air seemed heavier somehow, charged with something that had not existed moments before.

  Gold.

  The word rolled over him like a pulse he had thought long buried. Not the color, but a memory he had sworn to erase.

  Sterling had chosen that color six decades ago to rebrand the Academy.

  It was a color meant to mask his darkest secret, and now it returned, threatening to reveal what he had fought to hide.

  Sterling's chest constricted.

  He had contained this energy once, but this time he was not certain he would succeed again.

  Far down the corridor, unaware of the storm quietly gathering around him, Tymir walked toward his dormitory.

  Tymir's steps slowed as a sudden clamor echoed down the corridor.

  Voices shouted, boots pounded, and the sharp hiss of energy monitors cut through the hum of the Academy.

  He turned just in time to see a group of medics rushing past, carrying a Level Four REM agent between them.

  The trainee's face was pale, eyes wide, and her chest heaved beneath the restraints of the medical harness.

  Tymir's brow furrowed.

  Something about the way the agent's aura flickered violently, like a candle caught in a storm, set a knot in his stomach.

  Before he could process further, a familiar presence fell into step beside him.

  Cleo.

  She was calm and composed as always, though the alert sharpness in her posture never fully relaxed.

  Her gaze followed the medics as they disappeared down the corridor, the stretcher wheels echoing faintly against polished stone.

  Only after they turned the corner did she glance at Tymir.

  "It seems like these entities are getting more aggressive," she said, her voice low but steady.

  Tymir nodded, his eyes still fixed in the direction the medics had gone.

  The air in the hall became dense, charged with the residue of what had just happened.

  Cleo pressed her lips together thoughtfully. "Maybe that's why Chancellor Sterling is enforcing the pairing mandate. Too many REM agents are sustaining fatal injuries during missions."

  The words settled into Tymir's chest.

  He had witnessed flashes of trauma induced energy attacks before.

  Fractured auras, destabilized cores, but watching it unfold so openly, made the threat feel immediate.

  Real.

  Cleo studied him, catching the subtle shift in his expression. "As long as we keep our link intact, we're fine," she said evenly. "Entity fatalities only happen when the connection fractures and one side is left exposed."

  A quiet chill settled beneath his ribs.

  It was not the entities that unsettled him, but the possibility that when the moment came, he might not be able to hold the line.

  Cleo's words were not dramatic. They were factual.

  Tymir drew a slow breath and steadied himself, letting his gaze travel the length of the corridor.

  His posture remained composed, but beneath the stillness something shifted.

  A quiet awareness that the field he was stepping into was more complex than he had allowed himself to believe.

  He was beginning to understand that raw strength, no matter how refined, meant very little on its own.

  Power without alignment left openings.

  Synchronization was not preference. It was protection. And the cost of losing it had just rolled past them on a stretcher.

  Across the Academy, in a chamber built to test that very principle, discipline was being measured in real time.

  Marcellus paced the perimeter of the simulation floor, his hands clasped neatly behind his back.

  The polished grid beneath his boots glowed faintly, energy lines humming under the surface.

  At the center square, a Level Five REM conduit knelt, breathing hard, sweat tracing down his temple as residual light flickered unevenly around his frame.

  "Again," Marcellus said calmly. "Stabilize before you project. You are leaking from the solar plexus."

  The agent inhaled sharply and adjusted, drawing their energy inward.

  The projection field shimmered as a mid level hostility construct formed in front of them, unstable but contained.

  "Anchor first," Marcellus said, his tone steady but firm. "You don't move until she locks in."

  The male conduit hesitated, still charged from the last strike.

  "You're attacking on raw emotion," Marcellus continued, stepping closer. "If she doesn't ground you first, your center stays exposed. That's how fatalities happen."

  The female anchor straightened, adjusting her stance.

  "You wait for her," Marcellus said, his gaze shifting between them. "She sends the current through you. Then you release it. It's a circuit. Not a solo act."

  The conduit swallowed and nodded.

  "Synchronization," Marcellus added. "Feel her lock into your core before you move. If your flow isn't aligned, the entity will find the gap every time."

  A steady pulse moved from the anchor's center into the conduit's spine, rooting him, cooling the reckless heat that had flared earlier.

  When the grounding locked into place, his energy shifted from chaotic to controlled. The construct formed again, sharper, more stable.

  He struck.

  The construct held.

  Marcellus gave a subtle nod. "That's how you fight without tearing yourself open."

  A sharp alarm tone echoed through the corridor beyond the simulation chamber.

  It was followed by shouting. Rapid footfalls. The hiss of containment stretchers activating.

  Marcellus turned immediately.

  "Hold your field," he ordered the trainee. "Do not disengage unless instructed."

  He stepped out into the corridor just as medics rushed past, guiding a stretcher between them.

  Marcellus intercepted one of the medics, a woman with steady hands and tension etched across her brow.

  "What happened?"

  She didn't slow her pace. "They were containing a Jealousy entity attempting to infiltrate the heart chakra of a young woman," she replied. "Low aggression at first. Standard emotional agitation."

  Marcellus's eyes darkened. "And?"

  "An Envy entity breached mid-engagement," she said. "It piggybacked the instability and struck. The level four REM agents nearly lost control of their heart centers."

  Marcellus exhaled slowly. That pairing had been volatile.

  "How is that possible? When did Entities start working in tandem? Did they manage to neutralize them?" His voice carried a sharp edge of concern.

  "It's... unusual," she admitted. "Thankfully, they stopped the possession, but not without lethal wounds."

  Marcellus's gaze returned to the agent.

  Her heart center pulsed unevenly, its glow thinner and dimmer than it should have been, flickering under the strain.

  Faint fractures shimmered along the outer edge of her energetic field, subtle but impossible to ignore. Each ripple carried the imprint of impact.

  He did not need a report to understand what had happened.

  She had stepped between the entity and the dreamer's core. She had intercepted the surge before it could root itself in the victim's subconscious.

  She had absorbed it.

  Protection was not always clean.

  The emotional force meant for the sleeping mind had been redirected into her own center, contained there so the victim's psyche would not splinter under the strain.

  The civilian would wake believing it had only been a restless night.

  The REM agent would wake carrying the residue.

  This was the part the Academy never displayed in recruitment speeches.